


Iola

by oselle



Series: Birthright [8]
Category: The Faculty (1998)
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe, Angst, Conspiracy, Friendship/Love, Gen, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-25 12:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/953235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oselle/pseuds/oselle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zeke and Casey, on the road, discover something about the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iola

**Author's Note:**

> Podfic available [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/941231).

Zeke saw it in Iola, South Dakota.  
  
He hadn’t wanted to stop until they reached Pierre, but Casey had been hungry and in a mood, and pushing through to Pierre would have meant listening to Casey bitch about being hungry for another three hours. Zeke hadn’t even had a soda or anything in the car to keep Casey quiet.  
  
Zeke had pulled off into two other towns before hitting Iola, only to find that they weren’t towns anymore, just strips of soaped-over storefronts, on Main Streets that had probably started to die sometime in the ‘70s. Ghost towns that hadn’t been able to survive the rise of Wal-Mart and the mall, and were slowly being reclaimed by the high plains. Zeke hadn’t even taken his foot off the gas.  
  
Iola was a slightly bigger dot on the map and Zeke hoped that the third time would be the charm. It was hot as hell, the car’s a.c. didn’t work, and Casey was driving him nuts.  
  
Iola had the same look of sun-baked abandonment as the other two, but there were some signs of life. The windows on the First Dakota Bank were clean and there were flowers in the window boxes outside the Farmer’s Exchange building. At the corner of Main and Summer streets, the Iola Café had a faded blue awning and white curtains in the windows. Good enough.  
  
Casey had the fried chicken platter and two Sprites. The waitress ruffled his hair and turned a sympathetic look on Zeke, her pale blue eyes revealing a distant and no doubt long-forgotten Scandinavian heritage. She didn’t look a day under seventy. These people were also being reclaimed by the plains, like the towns they had once populated.    
  
Casey had to go to the bathroom and Zeke said he would wait for him outside. He wanted to stretch his legs before getting back in the car. He took off on a brief stroll down what was left of Iola’s Main Street.  
  
The Braden Movie Theater was at the center of Main Street. Zeke suspected it must have been a pretty jumping place on Friday and Saturday nights, before all the kids could drive to the multiplex. A chain was looped through its doors and old newspaper pages covered the insides of the ticket and poster windows. A faded letter was taped up inside the ticket window. Bored, Zeke leaned in to read it.  
  
 _To all of our friends in Iola,_  
  
When we first bought this theater in 1946, we were just newlyweds, and were so excited about owning our own business, right here on Main Street.  
  
Over the years, it has been our pleasure to bring the magic of the movies to everyone in Iola. We feel like we’ve been a part of all of your lives, seeing you come here for matinees as children, then on your very first dates and then with your own children.  
  
51 years is a long time, but it almost doesn’t seem long enough. As we finally close the doors on The Braden Theater, we feel lucky to have shared so many good times with you. Thank you for being part of our lives.  
  
John and Carol Braden  
  
The letter was dated September 30, 1997.  
  
“Hmph,” Zeke said, and started to turn away, but something to the left of the letter caught his eye, on a page of yellowed newspaper taped inside the window.  
  
Marybeth Louise Hutchinson, or so he had once known her, stared out at Zeke.  
  
Her name had been Kelly Lauren Jessup, and she had been sixteen years old, a resident of nearby Randall and a student at Plains Regional High School. Her parents had been David and Maureen Jessup. She’d had a sister, Ashley. She had last been seen at the Twin Rivers Mall on the night of June 14, 1997. Her best friend had been Rebecca Jerrauld. Rebecca was quoted in the article as saying that Kelly had always joked about running away, but no one had ever taken her seriously. Kelly had joked about a lot of things.  
  
The police found clothes and a knapsack missing from Kelly’s room, so they did not suspect she had been kidnapped. She was classified as a runaway, and the article said that authorities in surrounding states had been advised to keep an eye out for her. Rebecca said that Kelly had always wanted to go to California. The article reported that her parents were planning to go to Los Angeles to put up Kelly’s picture, in case anyone saw her there.  
  
“Jesus,” Zeke breathed. “Jesus.”  
  
Did she ever make it to Los Angeles, Zeke wondered, or did they pick her up before that? Would they have needed a whole year to do what they did to her? Or did they find her already on the streets somewhere, just another runaway kid that they figured no one would be looking for anymore?  
  
Kelly Lauren Jessup. She had been _someone_ , she’d been a daughter, a sister, a friend. It was not something that Zeke had ever considered; she had always just been Marybeth, and he’d thought of her human form as nothing more than a cocoon that she’d spun around herself, not a body that had once belonged to _someone_.  
  
 _I’m getting kind of used to it_ , she had said. Had Kelly Lauren Jessup gotten used to it? Had there been anything of her left in Marybeth? Zeke hoped to God there hadn’t been.  
  
Kelly Lauren Jessup smiled at Zeke from a yearbook photo grown sepia with age. Bad things happen to runaways, they meet bad people. Zeke looked at her face and suddenly remembered kissing her, never knowing she’d once been Kelly Lauren Jessup from Randall, South Dakota, who’d run away from home and met some very bad people indeed.  
  
“You ready, Zeke?” Casey asked from behind him. Zeke jumped.  
  
“Yeah…yeah,” Zeke said. His hands were shaking.  
  
“What are you reading?” Casey asked.  
  
“Nothing,” Zeke answered. “Let’s go.”


End file.
